


looking for somewhere to stand and stay

by voltemand



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Snow Queen Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27016738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voltemand/pseuds/voltemand
Summary: They are two broken people who will find each other in a storm. Unsubtle, but then again, this is a fairy tale.
Relationships: Britta Perry/Jeff Winger
Comments: 14
Kudos: 16





	looking for somewhere to stand and stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yellow_Bird_On_Richland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/gifts).



> Prompt: kissing, Britta/Jeff, in the snow, confessing feelings.
> 
> Title from The National’s “Slow Show.”

When it’s all over—when they’re out of the woods (literally and metaphorically); when they’re sitting on the library steps; when they’re cold, yes, but no longer frozen, their breath coming easy and clouding only slightly in the crystalline air—when they have, in short, escaped and grown, Jeff will do three things.

But it (nebulous word, for we are telling a nebulous tale)—it is not over yet.

Right now, Jeff simply is. An independent clause. He continues to be. He has been for his whole life, and he is getting tired of it. All this is not to say that he wants to die. Instead, he wishes that there was some way to slide cleanly into oblivion. He knows death is likely fretful; he feels he has endured enough of that. He is tired. We will call him depressed; he probably accepts the label but not the consequences.

Britta isn’t, mainly. She has defined herself for a long time in terms of other people and has lost many of those people by now. If she is anything, it is agitated. She wishes to be lit on fire. Though she does not remember the time she put her hand in a flame—how it hurt, how she curled and keened—even if she did, she would say this: if someone else does it (someone who is not Britta, that is, someone who does not screw up everything in her wake)—if someone else lights the candle, everything will be okay.

They are two broken people who will find each other in a storm. Unsubtle, but then again, this is a fairy tale.

Where were we? Stranded—appropriate because our next topic is none other than a river. All good stories—all old stories—start by one. Easy symbolism, that: travel, distance, length. Separation, of course. Gifts, babies. Birth. Death. Marriage. Rivers are winding. They do not say what they mean. They trick you, bewitch you. We all know one. We all will, by the end.

So, a boy. A girl. A river. And the woods. This is an old story, but we will do our best to tell it fresh.

\--

Chang sees it first. “Snow!”

“Snow,” Jeff agrees, trying to inject something wry and memorable into the syllable. “Frozen stuff.” He thinks about how it compounds, the flakes condensing into neat piles, then melting and solidifying again into flimsy ranks of ice _yes sir_ -ing at the sky. _When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions._ A more educated man would know how to finish the passage.

He has been wallowing lately, heady with the feeling of _not enough_. Figure 1: Jeff at his apartment (at, not in–this distinction is important). Vacuuming just to lie on the floor and then lying on the floor just to feel the wood: cool, hard, definitive. The floor is a noun and Jeff is too, but their relative proprieties should probably be switched. He feels improper; he knows he is improper, if improper means what he thinks it does–old and drunk and in love with a woman half his age. (That’s not the real definition, and anyway, it’s only two-thirds true. Another point against him.)

“It’s not snow,” Frankie is saying. “It’s raining, really. Not even sleet.” Jeff zones out again. He’s been doing a lot of that recently; sitting quietly at the periphery of moments, letting himself fade into the backdrop. He called Abed about it once; Abed told him that midlife crises really only happened once, and plus he was sure his hair looked great.

He continues to concur with whoever speaks, switching sides fluidly as a fish follows a current, tail flicking and scales gleaming and all the while engulfed in water, entrapped. Entranced, maybe. There’s something hypnotic about going with the flow. It’s like watching television, letting yourself be swaddled in the blue light. Comfort and conformity. Millions of other people are doing the same thing. _Hello_ , the newscaster says, and then his voice fades into a murmur, a blessing.

The meeting ends. Jeff doesn’t have an umbrella, so when he walks out of the library, he finds himself with wet feet. He starts to drive home, wincing when his sock squelches at the gas, the brakes. His wrist looks thin at the wheel. He’s not sure how long he’s been in the car.

There’s an exit coming up. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen it before. It leads into a copse, as far as he can tell. Jeff remembers going into the woods, saying something important. He remembers thinking he was a puppet, feeling relieved at that: when he fucked up, it wasn’t really his fault. Pull some strings and all will be well.

He turns right.

\--

The dean’s voice breaks through her cell phone as he forgoes any greeting for “You need to find him.”

There’s only one person who can make him sound so desperate. “Where did you see him last?” Britta asks. She gets her answer. “Okay,” she says. “I promise.”

She’s on the road by noon. Over her head, the clouds grow dark. A tempest is coming. A reckoning.

**Author's Note:**

> Yell with me on Tumblr at [withatalentforsquaddrill](https://withatalentforsquaddrill.tumblr.com) (for general bullshit) or [foresme](https://foresme.tumblr.com) (for fandom bullshit).


End file.
